The Sci-Fi Misinformation About Asteroid 2024 YR4 That Could Hit Earth

About halfway between the Earth and the Sun there is a rock mass with a diameter between forty and one hundred meters that is moving away from the Sun at a speed of about 82 thousand kilometers per hour. The scientists of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, those who scrutinize the Cosmos in search of asteroids potentially dangerous for the Earth ( do you remember the case of the astronomical center in the Madonie blocked by environmentalists and then unblocked by the TAR?, that's what it's for), discovered it on December 27, 2024 and named it 2024 YR4 . It is just one of the many rock masses that wander around the Universe. It's not even that big, there are gigantic ones: the one that caused the extinction of most of the dinosaurs was estimated to have a diameter of about 10 kilometers, the one that hit the Earth in 2013 near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk causing about 1,500 injuries was about twenty meters.

The problem is that its path could impact our planet.

Scientists are constantly monitoring it , as they constantly monitor other asteroids that wander in space . And they estimate the path and the chances of collision with Earth. Usually, these percentages are less than 1 percent. In the case of 2024 YR4, the probability has increased in recent days to 3.1 percent, according to NASA, and to 2.8 percent according to ESA. Yesterday, however, the percentages dropped again to 1.5 percent for NASA and 1.4 for the European Space Agency.

The percentages will continue to change. It is not easy to estimate the probability of impact, there are so many variables. The only option scientists have is to wait, continue to monitor and continually reconsider the variables.

In a private subreddit called Cosmos, user Alpheratz001 – named after the brightest star in the Andromeda constellation – is sure that scientists are lying. “Prepare for Armageddon,” he writes. “I have a brother who works at NASA and the concern is enormous. NASA and Roscosmos (the Russian space agency, ed.) are starting to prepare countermeasures. The pacification with Russia desired by Trump is due to this: joining forces to avoid disaster,” explains Alpheratz001.

Among the six hundred or so subscribers to the subreddit, the news was taken as true.

Among the six hundred-odd subscribers to the subreddit, many have friends, relatives, lovers or cousins, especially cousins ​​- because after all "my cousin told me that he knows a secret trick that if he gives it to you in three days you die" - who work or have connections with those who know state secrets that no one knows and can know. Some cousins ​​have already warned that they are working on an interstellar supersonic missile loaded with nuclear warheads to divert the asteroid's course, which however, if something were to go wrong in the launch, could cause an unprecedented atomic disaster. Hollywood has done more damage than could have been predicted.

There are quite a few space-themed subreddits. In 2022, NASA estimated that about 1 percent of the American population, 3 million people, were informed about space in private forums or through conspiracy materials.

Despite the self-assurance of Alpheratz001 and what the cousins ​​of other users say, Armageddon may not be on December 22, 2032 , the day on which the possible collision of 2024 YR4 with our planet is estimated. An asteroid of about fifty meters in diameter could cause destruction in an area of ​​about 50 kilometers in diameter, but the possibility that the impact could deviate the Earth's axis - as reported by conspiracy theorists - is science fiction, not science.

Scientists will certainly discover more asteroids. And perhaps even bigger ones.

Surely some of these scientists will be the cousin of some Alpheratz001 in some subreddit.

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